


Fear Not This Night

by A_Almond



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Amaurot, End of the World, F/M, Other, Patch 5.0: Shadowbringers Spoilers, alternative universe, retelling the past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-07-31 17:55:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20119210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Almond/pseuds/A_Almond
Summary: "Who am I? Who -was- I? And most importantly... who was I to you?"Our star is dying. We must make the hard choices, for the good of us all.





	Fear Not This Night

**Author's Note:**

> This will be multi-part. Apologies for any pacing issues, rusty. My headcanon for the events leading to the fall of Amaurot and the Sundering, featuring an OC and the Convocation of Fourteen. There will be a lot of death eventually. You've been warned!

“Reports indicate that the spread of decay reaches all documented crops, ma’am.”

Her face twisted into a frown beneath the hood. She crouched, one hand reaching out to touch the withered vegetable tentatively. Beneath her fingers, the leaves unfurled; gray-brown shifted back to a vibrant green. Her hand moved to the soil beneath it tentatively and she sifted. The smell was smoke and decaying flesh; it was foul and turned her stomach. She dusted her hands on her robes and then turned back to the scout.

“Have the rest of the Convocation been notified?”

“Yes, ma’am. Lahabrea is examining the northern crops personally and Mitron has arranged a meeting. I am to tell you that you are requested as soon as you can make yourself available.”

She nodded. “Refresh them where you can; remove what cannot be removed. Please have a report delivered to me at your earliest convenience. We will get to the bottom of this mystery yet.”   
  
“Ma’am?” The taller robed figure turned toward her. “Is this decay related to the tremors, do you think?”

The tremors had begun over the last three days, intermittently and with varying intensity, the worst of which had brought down an entire building in the southern sector of the city. They were cause for alarm among many of the citizens, a fact that was not lost on the Convocation, but they had yet to decide as a whole how to address it - nor did they have an answer for the cause. Fear was a new and entirely unwelcome sensation among many of their number. 

“It is too early to answer that question accurately and I am not fond of theorizing.” At least not aloud. She was nearly positive that the rotting of their crops did indeed relate to the seeming sickness of their Star, but to what extent was uncertain - just as the solution had yet to become apparent. 

What they needed was time and that was not a luxury she was sure they still possessed. The first two tremors were a full day apart, but they’d become closer together since, with the last and most severe one being within the same sun. 

“As soon as we have reached a conclusion, you have my word that all of our citizens will be made aware,” she added, bowing formally. 

“Thank you, Fayth. You are unparalleled as the Voice of the People and we are endlessly in your debt.” 

Beneath her hood, she smiled. “It is my pleasure to serve.” 

  
  


\----

The problem with a council of leaders was that for fairness sake, everyone needed to be heard, and that included extended formal introductions that she truly could have done without. While in times of necessity, the formalities were typically pushed aside, the tremors and decaying crops had not yet impressed upon their dear Emissary that he needed to get to the point in speaking - and she could tell she was not the only one who found the whole ordeal tedious. Igeyorhm looked like she might well have nodded off in her chair and Halmarut was doodling.

For her part, she found herself staring out the window at the Macarenses Angle. She heard the reports with a detached sort of interest; one was perplexingly about a creature in Akadaemia that by all reports was a monstrous thing and another was Loghrif discussing a heated debate he had overheard on his way in. It was Lahabrea’s report, though, that piqued her interest. 

“Following the most recent of the tremors, six different territories to the north have experienced crop withering that is resistant to all but the most potent of magicks in recovery. One territory in particular seems to be the epicenter: nothing will grow and no restoration seems possible. I am given to understand that Fayth was examining similar phenomena in the south?”

“Did you perchance examine the soil?”

“Yes, I examined it; the intensity varied area to area, but there was no denying that something was very wrong.”

“It smelled foul,” she offered, steepling her fingers together in front of her. “It smelled of decay; of rot. I have only smelled anything so terrible in creations that were found lacking in proper composition. There was… It lacked…”   
  
“The aether composition was wrong,” he agreed. “Out of balance. I brought a sample.” 

Her eyebrows rose. Of course he’d thought to bring a sampling. She may not have agreed with most of Lahabrea’s policies or stances on things, but she could not deny that he was clever most of the time. Just the same, she had a momentary flare of jealousy that she had not thought to do so. Her focus was elsewhere.

He placed the vial on the table between the Convocation, and the first to reach forward was a puzzled-looking Elidibus, who instantly handed it off to the side to Emet-Selch. 

“Something is wrong,” the Emissary said. “It is almost as if --”   
  
“It is not alive.” Wonder in the Architect’s voice as he turned the vial and poured a small sampling onto the table. “What I mean is that the hum of energy that every living thing has, this soil lacks. It smells of death and smoke. Burning, perhaps?”

He passed the vial to Loghrif and Mitron, who leaned together to look at the same time, and she met Emet-Selch’s gaze across the table. The hood he wore only served to minimally obscure the intrigue she knew he felt. Did he share her disgust as well?   
  
“There are questions rising to whether or not this correlates to the tremors and what we intend to do about the spread. If it is allowed to continue --”   
  
“It cannot be allowed to continue,” Lahabrea interrupted and she glanced his way. “There is no question, though, to the correlation: It is absolute.” 

“You have not yet proven that, Lahabrea.” Nabriales earned a hard stare from Lahabrea. “There could be some other underlying cause as to why--”    
  
“Coincidences of this magnitude do not happen often.” She could hear the scowl in his voice.

Elidibus drummed his fingers on the table, drawing attention back to him (and, she noticed with a smile, woke Igeyorhm up in the process). “We have not the time to investigate whether or not they correlate; our efforts need to be on finding the source of the tremors and on stopping them first and foremost, before more destruction is wrought.”

He wasn’t wrong, but ignoring the problem of the crops was not going to make it go away, either.

“Our responsibility is to our people, and our people need answers. What would you have me say to them?” Fayth asked.

“That we are investigating.” 

Her brow furrowed. That answer would breed more panic and fear among their people and that was not her goal. She would have to figure out a better way to present it so as to alleviate concerns that something more dire was happening. Perhaps she could try --

All of her thoughts came crashing to a halt as the ground beneath her feet began to rumble. The table legs clattered against the floor. She rose to her feet, as did several of the others, but her first instinct was to move to the window - a decision that she immediately came to regret when the rumbling intensified fivefold, one of the building walls cracking from base to ceiling.

Something fell in the Angle below to a horrific clatter.

Spider webs of cracks filled the window. The air filled with a horrible roar and the smell of smoke, and then it shattered beneath her fingertips. 

Someone caught her elbow; someone pulled her back from the brink before she could fall, and she put her hands over her face beneath the hood and huddled on the floor. Over top of her, she recognized Emet-Selch’s face, one of his arms over her head to help protect her, but the shaking and vibrating of the floor was nauseating. The awful roar filled the air again, echoing, and she clenched her eyes closed tighter.

It felt like an eternity, though she knew it to only be a few heartbeats. The floor stilled and the walls stopped shaking, but there was dust in the air; she could taste it with every inhale. 

Footsteps around her. Someone was moving. And then, a voice -

“Do try not to worry me so, Kore.” It was in her head, not out loud, and thus private. She lifted her head and he spared her a moment of tender attention to brush some of her hair from her face before standing back up. 

“That is two in less than a cycle,” Lahabrea said. She turned to look at him from her disheveled spot on the floor. “The intensity is picking up -”

“Part of Akadaemia seems to have collapsed and one of the lamp posts in the Angle as well,” Loghrif offered, moving over to the broken window to double-check. “There are botanicals running free outside of the building.”

“I will attend to it.” Mitron disappeared in a spill of black smoke.

She stood up, slowly, and then turned her head toward Emet-Selch curiously. When they were alone, she would thank him. Instead, she said, “I heard a distinct roar - twice - coming from the east. Would you be willing to accompany me to investigate?” 

His response was a nod. “The rest of you will, I trust, be more than capable of addressing this and cleaning up the debris?” 

“Igeyorhm will attend to it,” Lahabrea offered, but he also tacked on, “It would be beneficial for the Voice of the People to give a statement before departing.”

He was right, she knew, but what would she say to them? What assurance could she give that the tremors were minor when she did not think they were? The soil came to mind. Her stomach rolled. However, what she said was, “I will calm the masses at the Angle and meet with you when I am through.” 

“Do try not to take too long; my time is valuable, dear Voice.” He offered a dramatic bow before disappearing in a swirl of aether.

The problem was that she did not yet know what to say.

  
  


\----

  
The problem with offering assurances when she had none was that she felt like she was lying and lying was not something she would ever be comfortable with. To make matters worse, she was also not sure how effective her speech was: it offered more questions than answers and she could feel the doubt in their minds. 

“So pensive.”

“They doubt my authenticity. They question. These tremors are new and frightening, and fear is not an emotion I enjoy on our people’s faces.”

“So we will alleviate it by finding our answers,” Emet-Selch responded easily enough. He made it sound simple when they both knew it was not. “The epicenter of the most recent tremor is to the south, in an uninhabited area of woodland. Our charts dictate that we elected not to remove the trees for growth due to their stature and age. Census also reveals the majority of inhabitants are avians. You will enjoy the trip, I expect.” 

A forest with trees old enough to tower over them and filled with avians. It sounded beautiful and any other time, perhaps would’ve been romantic, but… 

“Would that we could enjoy it instead,” she muttered, her hands covering her face. “I am worried, Hades. Nothing like this has ever been documented before.”

“We are always discovering new phenomena.”

“You do not believe that, or you would not have come with me. You need not hide your concerns from me.” 

He pushed his hood back and stepped forward to look over the plateau where they’d met, outside of the city and away from prying eyes. “The concentration of aether leads one to question whether these tremors are a simple natural occurrence or something very wrong. Lahabrea described it as a sickness in passing and I expect his flippant word choice might have been more accurate than he originally intended. It does not behoove anyone to speculate on paranoia without evidence; we are a people who creates from nothing, and so we are a people who must remain firmly rooted in reality. However…”

She came to his side, but he did not look at her.

“I believe our Star is indeed sick, Kore, with an ailment as of yet undiscovered. I question whether we have time to prevent it from becoming fatal. The soil you and Lahabrea found was dead, and soil represents part of the Star. It is my fear that our Star is dying.” 


End file.
